“Son,” Chastain said, coming out of his inertia. “We need to settle down a bit here and go inside to talk about this.”

“Don’t you call me son. I’m not your goddamn son.”

“Mr. Elias,” Bosch said forcefully. Everyone, including Chastain, looked at him. He then continued, in a calmer, softer voice. “Martin. You need to take care of your mother. We need to tell you both what has happened and to ask you a few questions. The longer we stand here cursing and yelling, the longer it will be before you can take care of your mother.”

He waited a moment. The woman turned her face back into her son’s chest and began to cry. Martin then stepped back, pulling her with him, so that there was room for Bosch and Chastain to enter.

For the next fifteen minutes Bosch and Chastain sat with the mother and son in a nicely furnished living room and detailed what was known of the crime and how the investigation would be handled. Bosch knew that to them it was like a couple of Nazis announcing they would investigate war crimes, but he also knew that it was important to go through the routine, to do his best to assure the victim’s family that the investigation would be thorough and aggressive.

“I know what you said about it being cops,” Bosch said in summation. “At the moment we don’t know that. It is too early in the investigation to know anything about a motive. We are in a gathering phase at this time. But soon we’ll move to the sifting phase and any cop who might have had even a remote reason to harm your husband will be looked at. I know there will be many in that category. You have my word that they will be looked at very closely.”

He waited. The mother and son were huddled together on a couch with a cheerful floral pattern. The son kept closing his eyes like a child hoping to ward off a punishment. He was flagging under the weight of what he had just been told. It was finally hitting home that he would not see his father again.

“Now, we know this is an awful time for you,” Bosch said softly. “We would like to put off any kind of prolonged questioning so that you have time to yourselves. But there are a few questions that would help us right now.”

He waited for an objection but none came. He continued.

“The main one is that we can’t figure out why Mr. Elias was on Angels Flight. We need to find out where he was — ”

“He was going to the apartment,” Martin said, without opening his eyes.

“What apartment?”

“He kept an apartment near the office so he could just stay over on court days or when he was busy getting ready for trial.”

“He was going to stay there tonight?”